Recently out of Rikers, former Net Jayson Williams shows up at Union City soup kitchen to help mark milestone

UNION CITY — A notorious former NBA All-Star and a city commissioner helped the Palisades Emergency Residence Corp., which has run a soup kitchen, food pantry and homeless shelter in the city since 1981, serve their one millionth meal tonight.

Jayson Williams, the former New Jersey Nets forward, and Union City Commissioner Chris Irizarry served the one millionth meal consisting of bacon wrapped chicken, green beans, purple-skinned potatoes and fruit punch to a city resident.

This marked Williams' first public appearance since spending eight months at Rikers Island for a DUI he picked up in 2010. Before that, Williams served 18 months in a New Jersey state prison for crimes related to the shooting death of Costas "Gus" Christofi, the former chauffeur who was gunned down in his Alexandria Township mansion in 2002.

In the 2004 trial relating to Christofi's death, Williams was found guilty of four charges of an attempted cover-up of the incident and accepted a plea deal that mandated at least 18 months in prison. The jury found him not guilty of the most serious charge, aggravated manslaughter.

Williams, 44, said he was invited to last night's event by a friend of PERC Executive Director Emory Edwards.

"A friend of Edwards asked me to come here to bring up morale, tell jokes and serve food, so I welcomed the opportunity," said the 6-foot, 10-inch Williams.

Williams said he now resides in Hudson County but declined to say exactly where.
Edwards said his organization is all about giving people "another chance in life."
"People here are unemployed, have mental or physical health issues, or have made some bad choices in life," Edward said. "We want them to keep moving forward."

Edwards said that while he considered the event a "milestone," his top priority was to make sure "people don't go hungry."

Edwards said PERC served 80,000 meals in 2011 and receives as much as 18,000 pounds of food a month from food banks and donors.

City resident Patty Graham was the recipient of the one millionth meal.

"The food here is delicious they always do a nice job," said Graham, 58, who receives Social Security benefits and said she has been eating meals at PERC off and on for seven years.

"Our regular visitors now (to the soup kitchen) are what I call the working poor," said Tom Harrigan, PERC's director of programs. "These are people with full-time jobs that can't afford food."